At the outset, New York chancellor Robert Livingston advised as much when Washington asked for his views on the etiquette proper for the President. That titles, formality, and restricted access are “not essentially necessary I infer from the unlimited respect which every rank of Citizen feels for our Excellency tho in your public life you indulged them in an easy access,” Livingston wrote to Washington. “Hereditary Monarchs must in the common course of things be frequently men of little abilities & often have great defects it is therefore necessary to surround them with guards & to dazel
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